Say I'm using the Tool to look at terms associated with "custom widget" (no quotes) and "custom widgets." I know that "custom widgets" is a highly searched and extremely competitive term, treated virtually as one word... and that "custom widget" is very commonly used as a modifier for other terms, as in...
custom widget repairing
custom widget maintenance
etc...
I have historical data on this, some from Google, some elsewhere, that shows commonly expected terms associated with "custom widget." If I enter "custom widget" into the search box, though, I see none of these expected terms, which might easily number fifty or a hundred. Instead, I see about a dozen pretty insignificant phrases containing "custom" and "widget."
If I enter "custom widget repairing" or "custom widget maintenance," I'll get the phrases returned via Expand Broad Matches with the plural form of widget, as in...
custom widgets repairing
custom widgets maintenance
In the old data, "custom widget repairing" etc is more commonly searched than "custom widgets repairing" etc, as one would expect from common English usage.
If I enter the plural, "custom widgets," into the box, I do get a list of phrases similar to those I'd previously associated with "custom widget," but the order doesn't make much sense. In the past, these were generally returned in descending sort order, albeit with occasional glitches. With the plurals, I don't know what I'm looking at.
Is this a a big glitch or a new "feature?"
I should add that I'm not seeing results like these universally for singular nouns, but on some terms I have to guess where the Tool might be messing up. Right now, for "custom widget," it's useless.
Is the Adwords Keyword Tool broken? It's showing only enhanced broad-matching on some very popular terms that I know are frequently searched.
(AWA - I'd be happy to send you a particular example, but I can't post it publicly).
I hope if you find an answer to this you'll post it, as I remember you talking about it at one of the conferences - and I've still not heard a good reason for it yet.
I've only seen similar issues in once circumstance.
It really seems that Google has grouped keywords into 'themes'. A search for "real estate photography" only brings up photography ads, not phrase or broad matched real estate ads. It seems like the theme 'photography' has trumped the theme 'real estate' in this case.
A search for "photography mortgage" brings up no ads, and seems that the two themes are incompatible, so nothing is shown.
In the keyword sandbox, I've seen it a few times when a keyword could be broken down into two different themes - the sandbox returning very strange results.
I'm wondering if your keywords could be applied to two independent themes, and you're seeing one of the 'theme conflicts' appear.
I'm wondering if your keywords could be applied to two independent themes, and you're seeing one of the 'theme conflicts' appear.
eWhisper - Thanks. Yes, I'd dismissed that initially, because the manifestation appeared to be different from what we'd been discussing... but, in light of your answer I'm seeing that there might be some similarities.
What we discussed was that, when I had a list of several phrases in the keyword box, the relative sort order of these phrases might change when I added one unrelated or partially related phrase. Dropping the extra phrase (or changing it) might bring the sort back to what it had been.
In the example I'm currently puzzling over, though, I'm talking about entering just one phrase into the box. The "theme" competition seems to be not about single words, but about the competing associations of different word pairs, and I actually don't have to enter the alternate pair for the confusion to show up. It appears that it just needs to be a pair that's one of a significantly associated set of results in the database.
Here's a hypothetical example, invented and not perfect, and not actually happening in the tool, but it is illustrative...
Say I'm entering a pair, "estate planning," wanting to see a sorted list of more specific keyword suggestions that I know might include....
estate planning
estate planning lawyers
estate planning attorneys
california estate planning
I would know this list belongs, say, because I've seen them in the past on Google, on Overture, on WT, and on every other website in the field.
Instead, I get a list that looks like...
real estate planning
real estate finance planning
planning real estate business
Further, and this is really bizarre, if I enter any of the singular phrases that I know is commonly searched, say "california estate planning," in the box, I end up with no specific keyword suggestions, but with an Expanded Broad Match that shows, say, "california estates planning." Again, hypothetical example.
If Google's abridgement of the list is intentional, it may be their attempt to "clean up" the list so it doesn't contain a lot of what they may deem to be irrelevant or garbage. In any event, it's a feature or an implementation that appears to be badly broken, and makes me wary of what I'm seeing on almost any search I enter, and that's a big worry. I don't think I'd like such a feature even if it worked.
Unfortunately, the real example is a client phrase that I can't post publicly. I will Sticky you about it, and maybe you can come up with a real life parallel, and/or get the Google folks to look at the problem.
I was surprised that 'newspaper advertising' only returned a few 'more specific' results, but 'advertising newspaper' triggered the 'advertising' theme and showed many broad matches and alternate phrases.
There seem to be keywords that trigger themes. These keywords didn't trigger a theme at all, and were left with very few suggestions:
hosting marketing
hosting advertising
web hosting advertising
but 'hosting promotion' suddenly tripped the promotion filter and a flood of suggestions came back.
In comparing keywords that can belong to two different themes with the Overture inventory data, there also seems to be some trigger based off of total search volume. Meaning if your semi-ambiguous query is going to trip a filter, then it seems to trip the one with the most searches at Overture.
My guess (and I'm not a DB programmer by any means) is that when a semi-ambiguous query is being entered and Google doesn't know what todo with it they are looking at search volume and verbs to help bring back the relevant results.
As a note, this tool is not as aggressive in displaying themes as the actual searches are. A search for 'web hosting marketing' on Google brings back results for both web hosting and web marketing - however, the sandbox didn't show me any results at all.
